


Aftermath

by ingoldamn



Series: Romeo and Juliet Fics [3]
Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare, Romeo et Juliette - Presgurvic
Genre: F/M, Gen, I'm Sorry, LITERALLY, also survivors guilt, and depression, and drinks himself to death, angsty, benvolio is alone, i'm so very sorry, like super-angsty, lots and lots of it, post-Romeo and Juliet, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 13:49:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingoldamn/pseuds/ingoldamn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the death of Mercutio, of Tybalt, of Paris, of Romeo and of Juliet, Benvolio is a broken man, who longs for nothing but death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

Benvolio doesn’t laugh anymore, they say. Benvolio drinks himself to sleep, they say. Benvolio is a broken man, they say.

Benvolio supposes they are right. He looks around and sees peace everywhere, and he hates it. Practically everyone revels in it, but not him. Never him.

He used to long for peace, for the day when he could walk down the street without being attacked by Capulets. But in his dreams it was never like this. He never thought that peace would come at such a price, that peace would claim the lives of his best friends, of his brothers.

Once he was met with sneers and insults, when he walked the streets of Verona, now he is met with silence and pitying glances.

He thinks he would prefer the insults.

At day he drinks and sits in his room in the Montague mansion. He thinks he might be behaving a little like Romeo, when he was sick with love for Rosalina, but the drink slows his mind, makes it difficult for him to think, and he is not quite sure who Rosalina is. Unless it is absolutely unavoidable, he refuses to leave his room – doesn’t even unlock the door. He leaves only when he runs out of wine and, of course, he came out for the funerals (once they were done, however, it was straight back to drinking and staring into space).

At night he dreams. Sometimes he dreams good dreams of happier times, when he was not yet alone, when he still had friends, had a family, when life was good – those dreams make it harder to get up in the morning, makes him want to do nothing but close his eyes and pretend all is still well in the world, even though it will never be good again.

Rarely he dreams nothing – those are the best nights. After those nights come the days, where he can almost function (although ‘function’, at this point, means ‘walk across the room to light a candle’).

Often, though, he dreams of darkness, of blood, of death; they parade before him, everyone he’s seen die: Tybalt, Paris, Juliet, Romeo, Mercutio and practically everyone else, whose lives were claimed by the ongoing struggle between the Montagues and the Capulets. When all the nameless faces have passed before him, making him writhe with guilt and pain and self-loathing, Tybalt shows up. He laughs at Benvolio, smirks and tells him how weak he is, how pathetic, taunts him, and then his face changes; he turns into Paris, the young count whom Romeo killed. And Paris merely looks at him, a haughty look on his face (the look he graced both Benvolio and Mercuzio with, whenever they met in life), and spares him naught but a little lofty pity. Benvolio hates them.

But then the easy part is over, then the real nightmare begins. Because Paris twists and transforms and turns into Romeo and Juliet. They stand in front of him, hand-in-hand, pale and ghostlike, just like when they found them in the tomb – there’re still bloodstains on her dress. They blame him, ask him why he let them die. Couldn’t he just have waited, instead of rushing to Romeo, immediately following the discovery of Juliet's apparent sucide? Couldn’t he just have trusted that she had a plan? Why did he have to ruin it all?

Then Mercutio comes, his shirt still wet with red blood, his eyes blazing with anger. Why? he asks, why, Benvolio? I counted on you to save me from myself, why didn’t you?

Their voices, their faces blend together, until only two words remain: your fault.

He always drinks when he wakes from those dreams. He drinks and drinks and stares into the darkness and tries to forget the guilt, because he knows that it’s his fault. He should have prevented it, should have saved them, should have… should have… he doesn’t know what he should have done, what he could have done, but his drunken brain seems convinced that he ought to have done something; the problem is, he doesn’t know what.

The nightmares become more frequent and his drinking gets heavier and soon, the days start to blur together around him. He drinks and he sleeps and he ignores everyone who comes to see him. Lady Montague comes, several times, and when she can’t make him talk, she sends Balthasar and Abram to talk to him, and when that doesn’t work either, she convinces the Prince to talk to him (he might have imagined that part, though), until, finally, weeks later, she gives up and leaves him to his bottles and his dreams and his terrible guilt.

When he dies at last, almost ten months later, it is a relief, the say. Benvolio was a broken man, they say. Perhaps it is better this way, they say.

If Benvolio was still alive, he would probably agree.

**Author's Note:**

> \- this was inspired by the italian production of Romeo et Juliette ('Romeo e Giulietta - Ama e cambia il mondo' - you can find it on youtube, it's brilliant!)
> 
> \- I have a lot of Benvolio-feels
> 
> \- Find me on tumblr @ingoldamn, I always want to talk


End file.
